Progression

The air is sharp with the electricity of an impending storm. Tin roofs creak, depositing rusted flakes  into the air as they stretch.
My feet pound the pavement, sure and measured, quite unlike the sporadic patter of droplets as they plunge from the sky.
Along the quiet street of cracked tarmac, the sound of an insistent door bangs. Opening, then closing. Its sound almost seems to issue as steam from the fissures of the road.
My curiosity increases my pace. Harder, my feet slap the pavement as its flat surface curves to that of cobblestones.
The ghosts of anticipation condense in the air in exhalation as an aged mahogany door appears, opening and closing as if beckoning.
Come in. Come in.
And I come.
A curtained window shifts;  paled hand slides into shadow.
Mr. Chang.
I smile. Of course he is always there. Even if the door is unlocked and banging loudly. It must be the way he likes it. This sense of disrepair. Of age. Of the past.
Pressing lightly against the door, it opens slightly, with none of the fanfare associated.
The trademark musk pervades; a combination of smells from the pores of every item: the dry scent of carpet fibres; the sharp aniseed of furniture polish; the faint sweetness of the vanilla. Its source must be from the air diffuser next to the cash register, where beside it, is a tipping bowl of ancient, unverifiable origins.
I know so because this place is the creases of my palms.
Yet there is some unfamiliar object that catches my attention. Is it an intrusive scratch upon my palm, throbbing and reddened?
My knees scrape the worn fibres of the carpet, crouching to determine the value of this new object. It seems numerous others have felt the same as I by the way the carpet moulds comfortably to my knees rather than chafing.
I run my fingers along the embossed gold detailing of the slight china cup. Who once enjoyed this objet d'art? Was it a peasant with a mysterious collection? A prominent figure who enjoyed tea subtly flavoured with whiskey?
Almost in a daze I draw myself further into the store. There is a feeling that much time has passed, but an eternity here would only feel as if moments amongst such similar items of worth, of life.
Yet Mr. Chang's presence is yet to be enjoyed, making me feel as if the only breathing artifact.
I nearly fall over with fright.
Rather than Mr. Chang, I see a majestic mahogany chair shining with lacquer. Its fine wood, thick and curving calls out to me, for my palm to grasp its leg, to run my fingers along its seat.
And do I give in!
Slightly cool to the touch, it seems to sigh as my heart swells. Just as I closed my eyes while holding the tea cup, I close my eyes to imagine its history.
Yes, I can imagine an intellect sitting in this very chair in his library, stroking pages as he turns them to appreciate their words, his glasses sliding slightly down the incline of his straight nose. Occasionally, his hand coaxes it back to its original position.
His hand draws my attention: smoothed, and nails attentively cared for.
He opens his hand, staring at its lines as if to reveal his fortunes. To me, a scar that mars most of the lines is revealed, smudging them to a state undefined and faint. Almost if the feathering of the grains of a fine wood.
As fine as a wood of this lacquered chair.
The exact hands of my imagination's lays there, his long fingers draped over mine as if I were part of the seat he is enjoying the surface of.
His hand stiffens with the realisation that the sudden warmth is from a hand. The stillness causes the heat of his palm to burn into the back of mine, tattooing his fortunes upon mine.
Without conscious thought my eyes travel the length of his arm, reveling in the details of his knitted jumper.
Underneath, it must be made of a finely shaped muscle, thick and sinewy.
Our eyes meet.
His, a beautiful emerald. A precious, precious gem against my watery grey. A watery grey that is often mistaken as the rolling seas off Cornwall at night – its frustration contributing a stormy constitution that hypnotises the weakest of men into the rocky depths of my soul.
A great weakness of mine is to allow them.
He blinks, and my eyes shift, noticing the faint curves of a smile evoked by our shock encounter near-obscured by the chair itself.
"Do you come here often?"
Its deep sound rolls from within his stomach, roughened by a faint Irish accent as defined as my oceanic eyes.
A great weakness of mine is also to follow them upon those rocks, as if a metaphorical death will construe a form stronger for the next encounter.
"Very much so."
I answer as if he is a stranger, even though I know him very well. I know the details of his hands, his habits, and his desires.
Behind him a form shifts in the shadows.
"I was jogging only a moment ago," I admit.
"And the door was opening and closing," he adds as if knowing how my encounter ends.
Though there is silence between us now, my thoughts make up for it in the intensity with which  they stammer "then I saw a man who man sat in this very chair, his form as poetic as the piece that was infatuating him so and many a day would pass in this single room on this very chair, holding a book with his exotically smooth hands..."
But I do not say this, though I wish though that the opportunity would present itself with which to diverge such intimate details.
I desperately want to know whether they are true.
"I saw a woman in this chair," he starts. Unlike others, he looks me straight in the eye. They sparkle daringly in very much the way that men do as they are about to swim in those cold waters off of Cornwall.
My breath hitches loudly. Embarrassed, my heart throbs hard and my eyes begin to swim.
It only causes the edges of his mouth to curve higher in a way that I find endearing.
"From a verandah she watched the ocean roar and cower until there was nothing but umber. Its surface swirled with foam and its grey depths gave away nothing. There were no shadows of the slim forms of fish, or the contrast of the feathered bodies of birds."
Well, I thought I had wanted and expected this, but there is no manner in which I find I can reply to this.
But to tell the truth.
"And I saw a man in this chair. Though his hair was wild his hands were tempered, deeply occupying themselves in the art of literature by the light of a lamp amongst the shelves of a private library."
Our library.
Though I am stupefied as to how I garnered such a thought. Yet, I am unwilling to deny it.
"I see," he says not in a way that awaits further information, but in that way that quietly affirms my own suspicions.
It is him. And it is our library.
"Has your scar faded the lines of your palm?"
"Perhaps you should take a closer look," his eyes watching his hand that covers mine.
Seeing that he has not moved his hand, I decide to make the motion for him. He is encouraging me, after all.
We are encouraging each other.
Lifting his hand with mine, I see exactly what I foresaw. I use that word because it is no longer a fantasy, an untruth, a lie.
"It's even better than I imagined," the words tumble out of my mouth indistinctly as it is too embarrassing, too raw a thing to voice.
"And so are you."
His hand detaches itself from mine and moves to hold my cheek, pulling me closer to him through the bars of the chair. At this level of intimacy there is no manner in which eye contact is avoidable.  And that nose. That lovely, equine nose.
If anyone walks in on this moment they would strangely see a pair of strangers entangled within the arms of an antique, wooden seat.
Perhaps they would walk out.
Behind him, the shadows behind the cash register part and Mr. Chang appears with a knowing smile upon his face.